Where Do You Find True Grit?

It’s often inspiring how life leads us along, licking our wounds which it also inflicted upon us; we love it, we hate it. These last few weeks I have been immersed in the past. I live in a home that is 120 years old and often wonder about those who lived here before we did. Did they love? Did they find joy and survival, together or individually? Did they have physical pain? Surely, they must have because they were without NSAIDs, biologics, acid inhibitors, a local drug store, or a supermarket.

I often run across some little remnant of the past presence of one who lived here, like finding an oyster shell working its way out of the foundation outdoors or the aqua blue marine paint that dripped from the brush of an “ancient” mariner who used to live here, many years ago, still trailing down the rock foundation outside to the ground. I suspect the paint was “borrowed” from a ship where he put to sea as a merchant marine. Dying alone, not even bothering to cash his paychecks which were discovered all over the house; not by us but by others. What motivates or torments a man to live so sparsely and so friendless? What motivates any of us to do what we do? I guess we’re all a product of our times, our choices and whether or not we have true grit.

I have been going through boxes of old pictures we shipped up here from CA from my dear mother-in-laws home. She died last year and due to other circumstances we just got around to disposing of things we could not use or did not want of hers. We can’t possibly keep everything. Many old quilts she has given me over the years tell a story as I wonder who wore the clothing each patch represents. Old photos and pictures tell so many stories of wealth, poverty, joy and sorrow, don’t they? They take us out of ourselves and into someone else’s life for a time. If we let those old pictures of family and friends from the past “speak” to us, they will. I also found some letters, safely preserved in an old tin box printed with the name Rountree’s Dairy Box. It has delicious looking imported chocolate photos imprinted on it. It is obviously not as old as the letters.

Considering my fascination with the past, you can imagine my curiosity and interest when I began to unfold some of the fragile, yellowed letters to find they had been written between 1857 and 1870. Paper was such a desirable commodity, the writer wrote on every inch, sideways, up and down and always with a delicate, well trained hand. The cursive writing perfect, the beginning of each new sentence somewhat dotted with fresh ink that fell from the pen.

Reading of the experiences of these, my husband’s long ago relatives, I am reminded once again of the hardship of life at that time. Most of these letters were from Nebraska and its surrounding states. I am reminded that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books are true as are her daughter Rose’s books. Folks of that era had to have true grit in order to survive. They didn’t have to go out looking for it. They either had or they didn’t. What they did have to do was to survive one day at a time. They write of cholera and losing small children; skating to town on ice too thick to walk on. Let me quote one of them to you. “Our trees March 1st. (1857) all put on their wedding garment to celebrate the marriage of King Winter and bashful spring. The garment is lovely but too heavily embroidered with pearls for many of the slender ones (branches) and some of the stout oaks, too. Some of our lofty, lordly poplars made such a low obeisance that their heads touched the ground, and there they shall stay, encumbered with too much finery to rise. Many of the large poplars have snapped in twain. One large limb of the pine at the corner of the barn was snapped and there it still stands on its head, frozen to the ice. We cannot take the horses from the barn to the pasture as it has all converted to a skating pond.”

Then she goes on to talk about the men skating into town. I do not see her name on the letter anywhere as she identifies herself as sister and talks about recovering from cholera in her letter to her sister Helen. She asks about family and friends with names like Will, Sophronia, etc. She bemoans the fact she would like to enclose a dollar bill but cannot “come by one.” She mentions a relative who has received help from chronic pain from the Christian Scientist who has moved to the area as she expresses her doubts and fears about spells and mesmerisms and the fact the Salvation Army is holding tent meetings in the coming spring.

I can only wonder as I read these accounts of hardship and toil how they survived as long as they did without all the luxuries we take for granted. Of course, the life expectancy was 37-43 years in the mid and late 1800’s. Consider, with me, all they had to do just to get through everyday life. Handmade clothing of cotton or calico, wool garments made after shirring the sheep, carding the wool and spinning and weaving it. Their clothing was colored by berries, wild sweet woodruff, nuts of various sorts. Shoes homemade from hides and their underwear was linen or cotton to serve practically without lace or any other pretensions. Cabins built of logs, honed by the man of the house or with the older son and if they were fortunate, a friendly neighbor or two. Chimneys and fireplaces for heat and cooking, hopefully constructed well enough out of stones and mud to draw the smoke out of the cabin or not crumble and start a fire. Foraging for wood or chopping it each day, grieving over a potato crop frozen in the ground and wondering how the next day would arrive. Their children had to sweep dirt floors, perform chores to help the family survive and toys were rare and undoubtedly deeply appreciated. Books were scarce and brought from the East to the prairie. Events such as barn raisings and quilting bees brought neighbors together after many months of loneliness due to poor weather, no transportation and daily duties.

I would have to conclude that our relatives from those times knew the meaning of true grit. Do we have that kind of spirit, courage and fortitude? As you might suspect, I rented the newer version of the film TRUE GRIT this week. I found it excellent and no offense to John Wayne because I adore him, but Jeff Bridges outdid him in his realistic performance of the era in which the story, originally from a book, was represented. Every actor in the film did a wonderful job of taking you there, to that time and era. It was raw, often ugly and usually violent as man preyed upon man; was preyed upon by wild animals as well as weather conditions. Survival was always the word of the day as men, women and children grew old before they should have and fought Mother Nature as well as evildoers.

I am stunned when I return to the present where I am surrounded by comfort, heat from a pad, blanket or furnace; bottles of helpful medications, beautiful possessions, toys which the grandchildren have in abundance and definitely take for granted. I like to think I have true grit to survive these modern times. Life is easier in many ways but we do live twice as long as our ancestors therefore we are accosted by more disease but not necessarily more suffering. My own grandmother, Ophelia, suffered and was bedridden for the last few years of her life due to crippling arthritis. I never knew her, but somehow I feel as if I do. Her DNA runs through my body and I like to think all of its characteristics aren’t bad ones. The memory of her often spurs me on to find true grit in my own life and to sieve out the good parts of life and not allow myself to be overly encumbered by the pain. Some days I have to search farther and farther to find that joy, goodness and spirit which we each need in order to survive with true grit.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sue Falkner-Wood

Sue Falkner-Wood is a retired registered nurse living in Astoria, Ore., with her husband, who is also an R.N. Sue left nursing in 1990 due to chronic pain and other symptoms related to what was eventually...read more